A cooking competition featuring Edmonds District high school students will be at 3 p.m. April 23 in Brier Hall’s College Café at Edmonds Community College.

Loosely based on the popular “Iron Chef” television program, the event is an annual competition sponsored by the Edmonds School District. It features the winners from competitions at Edmonds-Woodway, Lynnwood, Meadowdale, and Mountlake Terrace high schools. Lynnwood has already completed its in-school competition. Edmonds-Woodway, Meadowdale, and Mountlake Terrace will have theirs on April 16.

At the Edmonds CC competition, judges are members of the community. Students, who have taken at least one semester of a cooking class, will prepare a main and side dish, as well as an appetizer and dessert.

“These students are learning real-life skills,” said Kimberly Nelson of Mountlake Terrace High School’s Family and Consumer Science department, who co-founded the cooking competition more than 10 years ago. “It will help them if they decide to continue their culinary careers at college or in the workplace.”

“Our students will be doing some mentoring on the day of the event,” said chef instructor Charles Drabkin of the Edmonds CC Culinary Arts department. “It’s great for us to partner with high schools. Everyone benefits with the connections that are made.”

The event is free and open to the public. To learn more about the Culinary Arts program at Edmonds CC, go to www.edcc.edu/clart.